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Plea Bargaining Assignment

Plea Bargaining Paper

Plea bargaining refers to the process whereby the prosecution and a defendant enter into an agreement in which the defendant accepts and agrees to enter a plea of “guilty” in exchange for the prosecutor preferring lesser charges or recommending a lighter sentence against them. Whereas plea bargaining is a legal practice in criminal law and procedure, there are differing arguments for and against its use within the criminal justice system.

Supporting Arguments

The most common argument used to justify the practice of plea bargaining within the US criminal justice system is that it saves on trial costs and benefits not only the court but also the defense attorney, the prosecutor, and the defendant (Worrall 349).

To begin with, a prosecutor benefits from plea bargaining in that it ensures a faster disposition of case loads and hence expediting the criminal justice process. The argument is that because more often than not District Attorneys have to prosecute cases using constrained resources; hence, it is not practically possible for them to bring every case to trial. Plea agreements thus enable them to settle cases with little prospect of conviction by proposing lenient charges to the defendants. This way, the already limited judicial resources are saved.

As for defense attorneys, such as public defenders, plea agreements are beneficial to them because it enables them to quickly dispose of certain cases and concentrate on those that warrant pursuance to trial. This way, plea bargaining helps speed up the process of defending cases besides giving public defenders an opportunity to work less for more money.

Further, defendants also benefit from plea bargaining as it gives them a rare opportunity to receive lesser charges or sentences. Also as the court stated in Blackledge v. Allison (1977), plea agreements save criminal defendants the uncertainties and anxieties that usually come with and are associated with criminal trials.......................GET A PLAGIARISM FREE COPY

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